Regrettably, delayed product deliveries, payment failures, shipping problems, or inventory control issues are common in the retail sector, not to mention the uphill task of updating the fall or rise of product prices.
Besides, the retail industry is highly sensitive to changes in consumer and market sentiments. Therefore, retailers must implement agile management practices to meet the ever-changing demands. This is where SAP S/4 HANA comes into the picture.
In the wake of massive digitization in the retail industry, SAP S/4HANA Retail provides a unified platform to improve innovation across the entire supply chain, from suppliers to customers and partners. It also supports the scalability and customer personalization efforts through extensive data modeling and decision-making tools.
More profoundly, S/4HANA empowers businesses to:
- Reduce the supply chain cycle time of creating and optimizing a new product
- Streamline business operations while creating an adaptive workforce
- Identify innovative ways to acquire new customers and build loyalty
- Inform real-time behavioral information, in-store and online
- Adopt a digitally aligned business model
That said, let’s discuss the real value of S/4HANA for retail organizations in more detail.
How Does SAP S/4HANA Bring Value for Retail Businesses?
SAP S/4HANA for retail is specifically designed to meet the dynamic needs of the retail industry and the associated digitization. It empowers retailers to integrate their manufacturing divisions with retailing efforts, handle global inventory requirements, utilize real-time market feedback, optimize supply chain processes, manage distributor relations, and run eCommerce operations on a single platform.
Check out some case studies of SAP S/4HANA implementation here.
Reef is one of the largest sandal suppliers in the water sports industry, operating in more than 20 countries. The primary goal of the company was to connect Reef ERP with Shopware, get rid of data silos, create a top-notch digital experience, and prepare for B2B and B2C commerce without using custom code or plugins. The implementation of SAP S/4HANA connected the key data like the customer, orders, and stock tracking information with the Shopware connector with a flexible and future-proof IT landscape.
Haldiram is one of the largest manufacturers of snacks, sweets, and beverages. The company has chosen SAP S/4HANA for the snacks division to enable quick and secure access to ERP and other apps, achieve superior connectivity to the cloud, enable integration with exclusive access, and achieve true digital transformation. The implementation of SAP S/4HANA provided a unified platform to handle the business-critical functions and offered secure and high-speed connectivity from manufacturing plants and warehouses to the cloud.
Rockport deals with the fashion industry in the US and Canada. The company was looking for a robust and user-friendly platform to empower the sales team, offer a unified buying experience to customers across geographies, build a virtual showroom to improve the shopping experience of customers and provide a better user experience to internal and external stakeholders. To fulfill the goals of Rockport, we implemented an extended integration of SAP Hybris and SAP FMS. It offered the benefits of digital asset management, and product data enrichment while supporting systems like ERP, CRM, payment gateways, and POS. By leveraging SAP Hybris v6.00, powered by the SAP HANA DB platform, Rockport has enhanced its customer experience while empowering its sales team significantly.
Features of SAP S/4HANA for Retail Business
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Data Monitoring
With a suite of custom data monitoring capabilities and embedded analytics dashboards, SAP S/4HANA helps identify new demands quickly and reduce inventory waste. Further, it allows retailers to gain a competitive edge by integrating AI-based predictive models.
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Digital Fulfillment Solution
With the introduction of advanced available-to-promise (aATP) tracking and other digital fulfillment management solutions, retailers can utilize current raw material levels and work-in-progress data to estimate the exact plant requirements and handle last-minute requests. It also empowers customers to communicate seamlessly with distributors and retail partners.
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Omni-channel execution
While most retail customers look for a blend of the online and in-store experience, an omni-channel strategy has become the key to success in the industry. With SAP Hybris omni-channel commerce, retailers can deliver personalized and seamless shopping experiences online and in the stores. The solution helps manufacturers and retailers create an excellent cross-channel buying experience for customers – from in-store to online, mobile, and beyond.
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High-End Personalization
SAP S/4HANA provides real-time insights about buyer profile, shopping behavior, purchase history, and product availability. With these key consumer insights, the retailers can evaluate the scope of improvements in average order size and promotional conversion rates and create personalized offerings.
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Improved Merchandising and Marketing
Retailers deal with dynamic merchandise handling in different seasons and need to maintain many products. SAP S/4HANA for retail ensures consistency of promotional offers and pricing across all the channels. It works across the entire product lifecycle, from creating the master data to procurement, determining prices, and managing stock.
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Assortment Planning
The structured assortment planning helps in managing more seasons/collections and achieving greater efficiency in the retail business. The relevant assortments can also help in achieving more profit and sales by getting the right depth and breadth of products in the right locations. SAP provides a solution based on the Customer Activity Repository (CAR) to increase the planning accuracy and reduce inventory costs using predictive analysis.
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Shrinkage and Adjustments
Inventory shrinkage is the difference between the in hand products and recorded stock count of products. To combat inventory shrinkage in the retail business, it is vital to understand the reason for shrinkage and make corrective accounting entries. SAP for retail can help to see all products across multiple channels in a single view and manage orders intelligently. The native tools can be leveraged to track inventory in multiple locations, determine the reorder points, manage safety stock, and cycle counts.
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Integrated Supply Chain Management
SAP S/4HANA provides a single platform to manage inventory, warehouse, and transportation. It comes with features like shipping capabilities, labor management, live inventory management, and real-time analytics.
How Does SAP S/4HANA Manage the Retail Business Challenges?
The platform has a simplified data model and embedded analytics alongside end-to-end support for retail functions like product listing, master data entry, promotion, point-of-sale accounting, and price maintenance. Here’s a rundown of the same:
- Master Data – Article Master, Segments (Categories), Customer Master, Vendor Master, Site Master, Value Added Services, Bill of Materials, Seasons and Collections, Routing, Size Conversion, and Distribution.
- Merchandising – Pricing, Retail Promotions, In-store Merchandising, Listing Assortment, and Layout, Retail Markdowns
- Sales (O2C) – Sales Order, Rescheduling, Shipping, Billing, POS Outbound, Order Allocation
- Planning – Retail Planning, Size Distribution, Retail Allocation, Replenishment
- Procurement – Seasonal Procurement, Purchase Order, Purchase Requisition, Invoice Verification
- Inventory Management – Goods Receipt, Merchandise Distribution, Inventory Management, Warehouse Management
Recent Innovations in SAP S/4HANA For the Retail Industry
Here’s a rundown of the latest S/4HANA innovations for retail businesses.
- SAP Fiori Apps: The native integration with SAP Fiori provides state-of-the-art supply assignment capabilities and an advanced business logic engine. It allows users to perform detailed simulations and understand the performance of existing logistics operations.
- Comprehensive Supply Chain Visibility: Leveraging the out-of-the-box key performance indicators, SAP S/4HANA helps gain the total awareness of stock levels and future procurement needs with the supply-demand overview (SDO) module.
- Adaptive Purchase Order Management: The updated platform provides extended ability to manage the procurement processes across multiple supply channels, divisions, and geographies. It also helps managers implement the “just-in-time” decision-making process for optimizing purchase order specifications based on market changes.
Get Started with SAP S/4HANA for Your Retail Business Today
SAP S/4HANA offers a comprehensive environment that helps manage the inventory, simplify the business operations, and access real-time insights. Indeed, investing in SAP S/4HANA can help revolutionize your retail business and make it more agile, connected, and analytical.